The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades

by Dave Duncan

  “Yes, Your Malevolence.” Eilir raised his voice in a bellow. “Gruffydd, boy! Stay you here with all your troop. The rest of you fine lads come with me. Going to freeze the buttons off your britches, we are.” He strode out and the men-at-arms reluctantly followed him, all but five. It was a chilly night for picket duty.

  Owen scowled at his brother.

  Badger scowled back. “How long will this take?”

  “An hour or more, once we get started. It’s a very complex conjuration. Maybe longer.”

  It would be almost dawn.

  “Well, you don’t need me. I’ll go and feed the bedbugs for a while.” Badger was out on his feet. He had not slept for two nights, and had not slept well for two weeks before that. Owen expected him to set out for Buran at first light and keep going until he arrived at Grandon—and then he would need all his wits about him whether the King was alive or dead. Yet he saw the instant veil of distrust fall over his brother’s face.

  “Why? Is your conscience troubling you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You should be here to witness our triumph. I want you here.”

  “As you wish.” Badger sighed and added under his breath, “I see why Eilir called you Malevolence.” He strode off across the hall with his absurd gown swishing around his ankles.

  The adepts stood around under lanterns, alone or in small groups, reviewing sheafs of paper, which he assumed spelled out their spells for them. He had not seen the hall in use since the great day of Ceri’s proclamation. For no better reason than that he wandered all the way to the corner by the gallery stair and placed himself directly below the spot where he had hidden that night to watch the birth of the revolution. The crowd then had been bigger, noisier, infinitely drunker—several hundred armed men on benches swilling mead and ale, singing patriotic songs, cheering every word of the speeches. Especially Ceri’s speech. Liberty! he had declaimed. Justice! Down with foreign overlords, and foreign taxes. Ancient rights. Ancestral freedoms…The applause had echoed from the hills and shaken the old ruin to its foundations.

  Crazy youthful idealism! With childish trust, young Bevan had believed every word of it. The older, cynical Badger did not and was quite shocked to realize that Ceri might have believed it himself.

  Ironhall lectures about Nythia had been straight Chivian propaganda, but some of the ancient knights who moldered in unneeded corners had been knowledgeable and willing to speak out in private conversations. Although he had needed to be cautious in what he admitted knowing, he had enjoyed a talk or two with old Sir Clovis. The snarly old veteran had insisted that Ceri’s worst mistake had been his tolerance of those who refused to support him. “Should have chopped off some heads,” the old tiger had claimed. “Wiped out the fence-sitters. Gotten everyone behind him.”

  Ceri would never have done that.

  And Ceri would never have done what Owen was doing tonight.

  Badger’s reverie was interrupted by the arrival of four men-at-arms and the prisoner. Wart was invisible inside a black gown comically too large for him, trailing on the ground. He tripped frequently, but two of the bull-size guards had hold of his arms, almost carrying him. Another led him by a tether, like an animal.

  Owen followed them to the octogram, where they pushed the captive down on his knees and tied his leash to the staple. The Prior inspected the knots and then sent the guards out to join Eilir and his pickets. He glanced around the elementary to see who remained.

  “Adepts take your places. The rest of you will remain absolutely silent. And do not wander around. This is a long enchantment. If you want to sit, do so now.”

  Four men and four women took up position within the octogram, one at each point, all clutching their scripts. Four more adepts, three novices, and five swordsmen remained standing around the walls in ones or twos. No one sat down.

  A small fragment of wood bounced off Badger’s shoulder and dropped at his feet. Surprised, he looked down and saw others, plus a few larger splinters, a small heap of guano. The old gallery must be about ready to collapse, which would not be unexpected. There might be mice at work….

  Was that a very faint creak?

  How big a mouse did it take to make a floor creak?

  There was someone up there.

  “Ready?” Owen proclaimed, and cleared his throat. “In your incantations you should find that the words ‘the donor, Lord Digby’ have been corrected in all cases to ‘the donor, King Ambrose.’ We think we have caught every instance, but please watch in case we—”

  “Wait!” Badger shouted.

  He strode over toward Wart without thinking. Or thinking, rather, of so many things at one time that he didn’t know which was which. He needed time to work it all out. Owen had been right—there was an ambush, whether Wart knew of it or not. There had to be. Snake already had men hidden up there in the gallery! They had bypassed the wards; they were in the compound. Eilir and his men outside were probably under arrest already or just plain dead, if the Old Blades were capable of cutting throats by night. As soon as the adepts began their conjuration, the tigers would pounce on them also.

  The cause was already lost. That was an astonishing relief.

  “What do think you’re doing?” Owen roared.

  “You swore there would be no torture!” Badger roared back. “You’ve left his hands tied. I’ve seen Ambrose’s wrists and they’re fat as hams. And the boy still has boots on—they’ll crush his feet.”

  He reached the prisoner and bent to look at him. Wart was obviously uncomfortable, doubled over on his knees with his hands behind his back, folded like a trussed chicken. The jeweled star was pinned on his shoulder.

  “Flames!” Owen shouted. “Take off his cursed boots if you want. Leave him tied there, though! And hurry up!”

  Badger checked the noose to make sure it was wide enough not to strangle Wart when the sorcery made his neck larger. He drew Ceri’s dagger and bent to cut the bonds around the slender, boyish wrists. Remembering Ambrose’s, he winced when he saw how the binding had already dug into the flesh.

  “Thanks,” Wart mumbled. He put his hands on the floor to ease the strain on his back.

  Badger went down on one knee to remove Wart’s boots. “I’ll leave you the knife,” he whispered. “Make a break for it when you get the chance.” He pulled off the boots and threw them out of the octogram. Then he rose and stalked back to his former place. In the darkness no one had seen him slide the dagger in under the folds of the prisoner’s gown.

  “If we may now proceed?” Owen said sarcastically. “The words, ‘the gifted horn’ should have been changed throughout the incantations to ‘the gifted star.’ Otherwise there are no changes. First canto begins with fire and air in unison. Ready? One, two—”

  Badger felt better. Ceri would have applauded what he had just done. Ceri would have detested this perverted, sorcerous vengeance. True, by giving Wart at least a sporting chance in the coming fight, Badger was following the family tradition of treachery, betraying his brother and his oath, but he took comfort in knowing that the cause was hopeless now. He waited tensely for the Blades hiding in the gallery to make their move.

  24

  Stalwart Stalwart

  Emerald had known some bad moments in her life, especially in the last two weeks, but this had to be the worst ever. She lay facedown in filth whose dust stung her eyes and tickled her nose, so she perpetually needed to sneeze. As a witness to treason, she was in fearful danger. She was already developing cramps, but any attempt to find a more comfortable position wrung squeaks and protests out of the dilapidated structure. Mere breathing seemed almost enough to shake it and send showers of dirt dribbling down through the rotten planks. Now she faced the horrors of the conjuration itself. After spending four years becoming attuned to the subtlest variations in the elements, she would find interrogation on the rack mere child’s play compared to witnessing a major enchantment at close quarters.

  As the adepts began th
eir invocations, she gingerly raised her head to look. She could not see Badger, but she knew he was standing right below her, because she had almost died of fright when he called out. There were half a dozen men-at-arms scattered around the hall, plus a dozen or so male and female sorcerers. Wart was helpless, a huddled heap in the center of the octogram. That left only her to fight for the right. Bad odds!

  Wart was facing toward her, his face invisible under the hood of his robe. She could think of no way to free him and pass him his sword, and even if she could, the odds were impossible, even for him. Light flashed…. What?

  Then again.

  Apparently no one but Emerald noticed anything—everyone else was intent on the enchantment, and she was looking down, at a very different angle. Again! Wart, she realized, was surreptitiously cutting through his tether and the light she was seeing was torchlight reflected from the blade of his knife. How had he gotten hold of a knife? That could have happened only in the few minutes between the time Emerald left him in his cell and the guards’ coming to fetch him. His rapier had been too wide for the air hole, but a knife or dagger could have been passed in easily enough.

  Who? It could only be Mervyn and his men, no one else. They had arrived already! Perhaps not all of them, just an advance scout or two. She could not imagine how they had passed by the warding spells unnoticed, but if anyone could do it, who else but foresters? So the rest of them would be on their way. Rescue was coming!

  By the time she had worked that out, the elementals had begun to answer the enchanters’ call and the resulting spirituality drove every other thought from her head. Owen and his accomplices were ripping apart the fabric of the world. The discordance assaulted her senses, blinding, deafening, choking. It skewed all eight elements, violating every principle of balance and harmony, but its main components were love and fire, as the Sisters in the court had reported. Love was elemental in all relationships between people, and forcing one man into an exact replica of another was to forge the closest relationship imaginable. Fire included light and hence vision, and so was required to change his appearance. Air elementals could make him sound like the King, water would reflect his likeness…and so on. As an example of the art of conjury it was a masterpiece, but it was also utter evil.

  She felt as if she were being spun around, beaten with iron rods, choked, burned, and frozen, all at the same time. She needed to scream for them to stop, yet she must not move a finger. She had never heard of a conjuration so long and complicated. A single performance would have taken a couple of hours. But, like all spells, it had to be recited perfectly, and three times one of the chanters made a mistake. Each time the Prior cursed and ordered them to begin again at the beginning.

  Where were the foresters? Why didn’t they hurry?

  By the time Emerald’s ordeal ended, a dim light beyond the windows told of the first tremors of dawn. Even the sorcerers seemed to welcome the release, for they lapsed into total silence. In that blissful stillness, she heard birds tuning up their morning chorus.

  Fighting giddiness and nausea, she dared to raise her head and look. Wart had gone. A much larger man had taken his place, for the black gown that had flopped so loose around him now strained across a massively rounded back. A thin cheer from the sorcerers confirmed that the conjuration had succeeded.

  “Magnificent, brothers and sisters!” the Prior shouted, hoarse from long chanting. “Gruffydd, go and bring Eilir and the others so that they may witness this historic justice. Gather ’round, all of you, and watch the tyrant’s execution.” Carrying a huge two-handed broadsword, he marched forward to the helpless prisoner. The others drew close also. Man-at-arms Gruffydd headed for the door.

  Why were Mervyn’s foresters not doing something? Very gently, trying not to make the gallery shake, Emerald drew Wart’s sword from its scabbard. If somebody did not do something to save him soon, she would have to watch him die. Do what, though? All she could think of was to throw him the rapier. Thoughts of hurling it like a javelin and impaling the odious Owen were pure wishful thinking. Having never fenced in her life, she could not hope to rush down and slaughter five men-at-arms. Most of the adepts wore swords, as well. Mervyn and his men were going to be too late, for Wart’s life would end as soon as the Prior tired of gloating. He set the monstrous sword vertically on its point right in front of the prisoner’s eyes. Resting his arms on the wide quillons, he gazed down, feasting his eyes on his victim.

  In spite of his wretchedly cramped position, Stalwart had not been idle during the conjuration. Badger’s gift of the dagger had put new life into him, or at least some hope of extending his present life. It was wonderful to realize that he had not been wrong to trust his friend! Whatever reasons had led Badger to return to Smealey Hole instead of going back to Buran, he was one of the good guys after all. His whispered remark about making a break for it meant that there was going to be a rescue attempt. After some thought, Stalwart had remembered the hints that not all the inhabitants of the Hole were traitors. So Badger had somehow organized a revolt. When the time was ripe, he would give the signal for the loyalists to rise and overthrow mad Owen.

  The time did not ripen quickly. While the sorcerers wailed their enchantment, Stalwart surreptitiously sawed through his tether, leaving a few threads intact so it would look right. After a while he began to feel giddy—heart pounding, arms and legs twitching. He thought he was just having cramps until a tightening of his robe warned him that the magic was changing him. He was growing! For years he had been wanting to grow—but not like this. He could feel his belly expanding like a wineskin being filled.

  When the chanting stopped, the first light of morning was creeping into the elementary. His head had cleared, but now his cramps were real. He was not at all sure he could stand up without help, or at least a few minutes to stretch his muscles, and the traitors would never allow that. Soon they would notice the almost-severed rope. Why were Badger and his friends not doing something?

  He heard Owen summon Eilir and his men. Then a broadsword touched the flagstones in front of him.

  “Well, Sir Stalwart?” said the Prior’s odious voice. “How does it feel to be a king, mm? I fear we cannot allow you long to enjoy your new status, because we must flush your remains down the Hole before sunup. You did swear to die for your King, didn’t you? Aren’t you happy to have the chance?”

  Chuckling, steadying the sword with one hand, he bent to peer in his victim’s face.

  With a roar that astonished even him—and was partly a scream of pain—Stalwart sprang up, snapping the last threads of his tether. He grabbed the hilt of the broadsword and simultaneously slashed the dagger at the sorcerer. He would have killed him had his limbs not cramped up on him so much, or had Owen not turned out to be so much smaller than he expected. Nevertheless, the Prior squealed and fell back with blood spurting from a gashed arm. Onlookers howled in horror.

  “Execution?” King Ambrose’s voice thundered through the hall. “If there’s to be executions, I’ll do the executing.” Two-handed, Stalwart swung the broadsword at the conjurer, but again his stiff limbs betrayed him. He stumbled and missed. Owen was already backing away, fumbling to draw the sword that hung at his side.

  Boots hammered on the stairs at Emerald’s back. The gallery groaned, rocking like a cockleshell in a tidal bore.

  Seeing another scythe stroke coming, the Prior dodged, dropped his sword, and fled. The King lumbered after him, swinging the broad-sword around as if it weighed no more than a riding crop.

  Man-at-arms Gruffydd bellowed, “Kill him!” and charged. His followers and the armed adepts drew their swords also, but with less enthusiasm.

  Emerald turned and saw Badger’s horrified face staring at her. The platform began to shift one way and the stair another.

  Gruffydd closed with Stalwart and stopped a killer swipe that brushed aside his attempt to parry and practically cut him in half. “One!” roared the King.

  Badger howled, “The sword!”r />
  Emerald hurled the rapier to him an instant before the gallery collapsed. She slid, yelled, clutched at the teetering railing, and then shot down in an avalanche of rotten timber and filth. An explosion of dust shot out, filling the entire elementary with foul and acrid fog.

  That saved the day.

  For a few minutes everybody was blinded. Badger began yelling a war cry of, “Starkmoor! Starkmoor!” between coughs, and the King took it up. Everyone else was enemy, so the two of them laid about them at will, hunting down and striking every blurred shape. A few voices countered with, “Nythia! Nythia!” but those were rapidly silenced or turned into screams.

  Emerald felt safest just lying where she had fallen. Only when she was sure she had not broken any bones did she stand up, choking and weeping. By that time, the battle was over. The last fugitive sorcerers had vanished, taking their wounded. Badger and the King stood in the doorway, howling derision after them.

  Three adepts, one novice, and five men-at-arms lay dead on the floor. She noticed that none of the adepts wore the Prior’s gold belt. The victims of Wart’s butchering broadsword were easily distinguished by their gaping wounds and the pools of blood around them. It seemed only three of the nine had been felled by Badger’s surgically precise rapier. The two victors lowered their blades, looked at each other, and then whooped louder than ever. They crashed together in an embrace and a dance of triumph. The King lifted Badger off his feet and swung him around.

  Ignoring her bruises, Emerald hobbled over to the capering lunatics at the door. “Wart?”

  “Em! Are you all right?”

  “Are you Wart?”

  “Of course I’m Stalwart.” He thumped his prominent belly. “Exceedingly stalwart!”

  He might think he was Wart. To look at he was King Ambrose—huge and fat and loud, but capable of twirling Badger around like a child without even laying down that broadsword. He filled the sorcerer’s gown beyond capacity, for it had split at the shoulders and barely met across his bulging belly, exposing a tangle of reddish fur on his chest. Although he seemed to be unwounded, he was splattered with other men’s blood from his bare feet to his bronze beard. His globular face was coated with the foul gray dust, showing red streaks where sweat had run down it. He was gasping and panting, but his piggy little eyes gleamed with triumph. He reeked of the evil sorcery.